On The Road With Rembrandt!!

On the road, should be making Ambrotypes soon. Love the experience of traveling in Fanny the RV with Freddy the darkroom trailer.

When your away from everything and everyone there is a sense of freedom and creativity that is hard to describe. Whenever I am in Thailand for extended trips of 6 months or longer I feel it to an even greater degree.

Yesterday in Ponoka, Alberta I picked up a bunch of CDs, DVDs and book. A ton of entertainment for $30. The highlight is a wonderful book, with great reproductions, on one of my favourite artists, REMBRANDT!! Cost? $2.05.

20x20Inch Mammoth Ambrotype

This is my first successful (kinda) mammoth 20x20 Ambrotype. It is the second one I varnished (first overexposed). .

QQC Collodion with a 13 minute exposure, HF2024 camera and 19 inch lens.

Note* Ordered another 10 sheets of 20x24 clear glass/3mm!! I pick it up today for the week ahead of shooting.

Video: 4 Ambros, 2022-23, 8x10 Clear Glass

 4 Ambros, 2022-23, 8x10 Clear Glass

Video: Forest Plain, 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Preacher Point, Alberta, 2023

Forest Plain, 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Preacher Point, Alberta, 2023

This image is back lit, not sure I like that effect, but it certainly looks different then my other ambros.

It’s Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2nd 20x24 Wet Plate Holder

I ordered a 2nd 20x24 inch wet plate holder from Filip in Czechia (Czech Republic) tonight. I might get this one with carbon fiber slides, not sure just yet. Cost of a normal holder is $400 Euro, for a Carbon Fiber double slide holder it is $800 Euro. I paid 1/2 up front, the build started. It will take a month or so.

I figured I needed a backup holder just in case my plastic slide version breaks down. Which it will with the hard use I plan to put it through. I do not want to be in far off Northern Yukon making 20x24 Ambrotypes and my one and only holder becomes damaged and unusable. It would be extremely painful to not be able to make beautiful Ambrotypes, in a beautiful, important location because my holder broke!! After I receive this one, I will always have a backup. Expensive, but important.

Wet plate and this project is so expensive. I need to get additional funding somehow, some way.

2023 Ambrotype

This year! Forest at Preacher Point, Clear Glass Ambrotype, Highway 11, Alberta

8x20 Deardorff (Eddy) with120mm kens and Quinn Quick. Clear Collodion (QQC).  

The temperature was over 25c in the trailer. I was getting artifacts with Gerry Collodion. QQC seems to handle higher temps better. Will keep experimenting.

Exposure is so difficult with wet plate work. I feel this one might be a tiny bit under and the 20x29 inch flower shits from last week, might be a bit over

New Turner Book

Really loving this book by Franny Moyle. Turner is such an inspiring. beautiful artist to study. His later work is one of the influences for the ambrotype project.

Video: Forest Gull Lake Ambrotype

Forest Gull Lake, 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotypes, Alberta 2022.

 

Full shot and details from the Ambro

Video: Full and details of AmbroGull Lake Tree With Leaves, 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotype

 Gull Lake Tree with Leaves, 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta 2022

Full shot and details of Ambro

Video: Over Exposed? Kinda Like It!

 Forested area 8x10 Clear Glass Ambrotype, 2022

Beside a bit of an overexposed Ambro from back in the day, 1870s?

Bought This Ambrotype, 6 Years Ago!

Been into Ambrotypes for a while now! From 6 years back.

Bought this today off eBay ($95USD), measures 3x4 inches. A ambrotype (photo on glass) from the 1880s. 2 Japanese women in kimono. The seller was someone in Ama-Gun Japan. I find the image mysterious, beautiful and haunting. Will take it with me when I do my own ambrotypes for inspiration. I wonder who they were? What lives did they live?

Japanese Ambrotype

How To Speak With Ambrotypes?

 I have been thinking a lot about the identity I want to have with my Ambrotypes. What do I want to say, and how will I say it?

Are artifacts ok? I think so.

Are slightly overexposed plates acceptable? Yes they kinda have a glow to them. Certainly better than underexposed Ambros that Jack heart.

Old portrait, and new landscape Ambrotypes!

Last Year At Preachers Point, On The David Thompson Highway, Alberta

 From last year’s Facebook post.

Got to love Ambrotypes